September 2006

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Colouring between the “Lyons”

By Lynda Chambers

Imagine a mom who banned colouring books!

Erik Lyons’ mother did.

"She didn't believe in colouring between the lines and instead encouraged me to do my own thing when I was little," Erik says.

That artistic licence undoubtedly nurtured a talent in the young Erik. Today, he's a student at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver and is the creative energy behind a series of beautifully detailed models of the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae), produced for Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). NRCan uses the models to educate Canadians about one of many threats to the health and safety of our forests.

The experience of creating a unique model was a one-of-a-kind assignment that came during Erik's well-timed co-op placement at the Royal British Columbia Museum (RBCM) in Victoria.

“How would you like to build a beetle?” asked Erik's supervisor, RBCM Exhibits Manager Barry Forrester.

Barry knew that Erik was keen to tackle an assignment like this, and he made it happen. At the time, NRCan’s Canadian Forest Service was looking to add a second large-scale beetle to its collection at its Pacific Forestry Centre because the first one was very old, in need of repair, and so popular as an educational tool that it was often loaned out.

The Museum offered to help out by having new museum staff and students create smaller beetles for NRCan as part of a training exercise. In this way, labour and expertise were subsidized by the RBCM and NRCan covered the cost of materials.

The project grew legs from that point on. When the British Columbia Ministry of Forests and Range agreed to place orders, it was decided to create a mould so that numerous beetles could be made.

For Erik, the first challenge was figuring out how to make an accurate, museum-quality model for the mould that would be ten times the size of an insect as small as a grain of rice!

“Exhibits technician Nigel Sinclair and I sat down and tried to analyze and envision every step it would take to create the model,” says Erik. “Then I just sort of went for it.”

"I had a pretty good understanding of the mould-making process through training on a previous project with Adrienne Aitkins, the Museum's resident mould-making wizard,” Erik explains. “She had taken me under her wing to help make some fossil replicas for a timeline exhibit. Between her and Nigel there was always an answer to be found for any problem,” says Erik.

And problems, there were!

"The hardest part was making the legs. They were difficult to cast, being so thin,” recalls Erik.

He says he was also surprised at how big the pine beetles' antennae were. That came to light early on when the prototype model was examined by NRCan Entomology Technician Doug Linton, who noted that Erik’s antennae were too small. Doug knows the anatomy of the beetles better than most because he photographs the beetles in precise detail. He was able to point out that a defining characteristic of the mountain pine beetle was its large club-shaped antennae.

Casting, assembling and finishing the beetles — twenty in the first run — did not take long. It was the care, patience and precision that went into creating the original mould that took the most time and was the most intensive part of the project.

Challenges aside, Erik says that Barry made the co-op placement worthwhile by letting him work on such an amazing project.

“Our forests are important to me, and if my work on this beetle project in some way helps to raise awareness about their vulnerability, then that makes me happy,” he says.